The flag-pole on the balcony was slanted at an angle of forty-five degrees and from it hung the familiar blue and white and orange colours. Very carefully Blanchaille lowered the flag to half-mast.
‘Any more questions?’ Trudy asked jumping up and smoothing the white coverlet on the death bed. ‘Oh yes, I know — you’re dying to ask me if I’m Gus Kuiker’s mistress. So, then — do I sleep with Gus Kuiker?’
‘No,’ Kipsel protested weakly, ‘we were not going to ask you that.’
‘But I insist. Sleeping with Gus Kuiker means that once or twice a week he gets into bed beside me. I lie on my back and spread my legs. He puts a cushion under my backside because, he says, he doesn’t get proper penetration otherwise, and then he pushes himself into me with some difficulty and moves up and down very fast because he gets penis wilt, you see. He can get it up but he can’t keep it up. You can rub him, suck him, oil him. It doesn’t help. While he’s going he’s O.K. The moment he stops, it drops. So about two minutes later, that’s it. Overs cadovers. So much for sleeping with Gus Kuiker. He’s also heavier now, sadder, he drinks almost all the time and he seldom shaves. But, as you say, we do indeed sleep together. Though I hope next time you use the phrase you will think hard about its implications.’
Back in the cellar Blanchaille was gloomier than ever. ‘What if I’m wrong and the Kruger story ends with this house?’
‘It doesn’t.’
‘But say it did.’
‘No, dammit. I won’t say it did! You know the story as well as I. This is just another stage on the journey which began in Pretoria, went on to Delagoa Bay, touched Europe and Marseilles, and then moved on to Tarascon, Avignon, Valence, Lyons, Mâcon and Dijon to Paris, as Uncle Paul travelled Europe to win support for the Boer cause. He pressed on to Charleroi, Namur and Liège, he called at Aachen and Cologne and Düsseldorf, Duisburg and Emmerich, and then he went on to Holland, stopping at over half a dozen cities before pitching up at the Hague. December 1901 saw him in Utrecht, nearly blind, 1902 he was in Menton for the warmth. He was in Hilversum in the following year and then back to Menton for the sun. Only in 1904 did he come here to Clarens, to this house which he did not buy, but rented from a M. Pierre Pirrot — some doubt has been cast on the existence of this man — notice the similarity between his name and the French pantomime character with the white face, Pierrot. The picture we have of the solidity of this house, of his living here in exile, of the near-blind old man in his last days looking out across Lake Geneva to the mountains, it all sounds like a drama, doesn’t it? Or a tragedy? And it suits the people to give the legend weight and durability, to make it solid and believable. The bourgeois respectability of this house aids that delusion. But it’s not a drama, or a tragedy. It’s a pantomime! Everybody’s dressed up, everyone’s pretending. For instance, he wasn’t here alone, Uncle Paul. His family was with him, his valet, his doctor, countless visitors called. And he was by no means finished either. He had his plans. The last act of the pantomime was not yet played out. And he had to hurry. He came here in mid-May of 1904 and by the end of July he was dead. But in those short months he was busy, sick as he was, planning a place for those whom he knew would come after. He knew that many of his people would collaborate with the enemy. But he also knew that some would hold out, escape, and would have to be accommodated. He wanted a place, an ark that should be made ready to receive the pure remnants of the volk.’
But a black passion had seized the ex-priest and he said stubbornly. ‘Yes, but what if there is no such place?’
‘Then,’ said Kipsel, ‘all I can do is to quote to you again the mad old Irish priest who knew a thing or two — if a last colony, home, hospice, refuge for white South Africans does not exist, then it will be necessary to start one.’
That night Trudy lay beneath Kuiker who was hissing and bubbling like a percolator and had his tongue clenched beneath his teeth in a frenzy of concentration as he entered her, trying to ensure that his erection lasted through the entry phase.
‘I think,’ said Trudy, ‘that you are going to have to get rid of our guests.’
Kuiker did not reply. He had begun moving well and did not want to break his intense effort to remain upright and operational. Instead he shook his head, not to indicate his refusal, but to show her it was not the time to talk of these things.
‘Now,’ said Trudy, cruelly tightening her exceptional vaginal muscles.
Kuiker shrank, he fell out of her, he sat back on his haunches and said, ‘Damn! That’s lost it.’
‘We can’t hold them much longer, Augustus. Something is going to have to be done. They claim they don’t care about us. They say they’re above all this. But they might just give us away.’
But he was not interested. He considered his failed member. The brandy he had drunk had befuddled him and was making him very sleepy. He reckoned he had at least one chance to make it inside Trudy that night and he was going for it. Such determination, such single-mindedness had been the mark of his political success in the days when he was tipped as the next prime minister. Desperately he seized his penis and began rubbing it firmly. It stiffened perceptibly. There was no time to lose. With a grunt he pushed her back on the pillows, thrust his hands under her buttocks and rammed himself home.
‘First thing in the morning,’ he promised. ‘Crack of dawn, I’ll finish them.’
Downstairs in the cellar Kipsel was in a bad way. Trudy’s knots cut so deeply into his wrists that the circulation had gone and try as he might to loosen the cord he only succeeded in cutting more deeply into the flesh and making his wrists bleed. He’d not been able to contain his bladder either and a pool of urine spread beneath the chair.
It was then that Blanchaille had a brainwave.
‘Ronnie,’ he said suddenly, jerking upright in his chair, ‘Jesus what an idiot I am! I’ve been sitting here for days putting up with this crap and all the time I had a way out of here.’
Kipsel licked his lips weakly. ‘Good. Only hurry, Blanchie.’
Sometime later Mevrou Fritz arrived with a pile of ironing. She grimaced at the sight of the urine and wrinkled her nose.
‘Mevrou Fritz,’ said Blanchille, ‘do you get well paid?’
‘Are you joking?’ the concierge demanded. ‘I work for the Department of Works, that’s who this house comes under, through the Embassy in Berne, that’s who I work for. I thought I told you. Do I get well paid? Bus drivers get better paid! Then there’s my accommodation here, for free, so they dock the salary accordingly. Why?’
‘What would you say if we disappeared?’
Her grey eyes stared into his unblinkingly. ‘Hooray. That’s two less to worry about, I’d say. This house isn’t meant for people, you see. Not living people. At the moment I’ve got the attic full of guests, and you men in my cellar.’
‘I think we can help you on both counts,’ said Blanchaille.
A few minutes later they were on their feet and Mevrou Fritz was stroking the necklace threaded with Krugerrands with which Blanchaille had been presented in the Airport Palace Hotel by the beautiful Babybel — a key she had said which he would know how to use when the time came.
Mevrou Fritz took them to the front door but to the old woman’s horror they would not go until they signed the visitors’ book. Trembling she took them to the book and begged them to hurry before the big boss upstairs, as she called him, woke up and shot them all.
Very carefully, Kipsel wrote this message in the book: TO THOSE WHO COME AFTER US — BEWARE! THIS IS NOT THE HOLY PLACE YOU THINK. THIS IS THE HIDE-OUT OF ESCAPED MINISTER GUS KUIKER AND TRUDY YSSEL. THEY ARE LIVING RIGHT ABOVE YOUR HEADS. TELL OUR EMBASSY IN BERNE. YOU WILL BE REWARDED.